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Dungeons and Dragons Wiki:Editing guidelines
Please take the time to read the editing guidelines, as they may differ from other wikis you have edited. What is this wiki about? This wiki is an encyclopedia on Dungeons & Dragons. It describes both in-world topics like spells, races, individuals and locations, and meta-game topics like books, writers, and rules. Do not include: * "Homebrew" - game rules you invented yourself, such as new prestige classes or magic items. Several other wikis exist for this purpose, including dandwiki.com, dnd-wiki.org, and dungeons.wikia.com. * Large amounts of text excerpted from copyrighted sources. Write in your own words. Short quotes and excerpts are acceptable. * Copies of actual game rules text or statistics. This usually violates copyright, and this wiki is not a repository of game content. (This is despite some older pages which currently do this, and should be removed.) * Copies of the System Reference Documents. There are already numerous other copies of these online. * Articles on unofficial or third-party content (see "Canon", below). However, it is acceptable to note significant unofficial appearances of official content, such as references to Demogorgon in Stranger Things, or an official monster appearing in a major third-party sourcebook. * Links to websites that provide pirate content. Links to websites which sell legitimate copies of books are acceptable. Point of view * Write in present tense. For example, dwarves are a race, not dwarves were a race; the latter makes it sound as if dwarves are extinct, which isn't true for most D&D campaigns. Exceptions: ** The history section of articles, which happened in the past by definition ** Real-world events which happened in the past (e.g. D&D 5th edition was released in 2014) ** Fictional events which took place too far in the past for any player character to have witnessed them * Write edition-neutral. Assume that all canonical content from every edition of Dungeons & Dragons is true somewhere in the multiverse, even if two sources disagree. For example, the tieflings of D&D 5th edition are the result of an ancient pact, but this does not invalidate the tieflings of D&D 3rd edition, who are the descendants of of fiends taking human form. Canon * Only create articles on topics which occur in canonical sources. * For in-world facts, only include information which is from a canonical source. For example, while it is true in the real world that cyanide is used to mine gold, this isn't canon unless a canon D&D source says so. ** Exception: Notable unofficial material may be referenced in real-world articles or sections, such as publication history. * For the purpose of this wiki, the following sources are considered canon: ** D&D books published by TSR or Wizards of the Coast, or under license from those companies ** D&D magazines published by TSR or Wizards of the Coast, or under license from them, such as Dragon, Dungeon, Polyhedron and Strategic review, including the digital editions of Dragon and Dungeon ** Web articles, web enhancements, and digital publications by Wizards of the Coast or under license, including Paizo's web enhancements for Dragon/Dungeon ** System Reference Documents for D&D A non-exhaustive list of things which are not D&D canon: * Pathfinder * Third-party D20 sourcebooks * Homebrew fan-made material (e.g. a spell you invented) * D&D Beyond's homebrew section * Matt Mercer's opinions on dragonborn having tails * Events which only occurred in your home D&D game However, this wiki's policy on canon is still under consideration. For example, are novels canon? Living Greyhawk adventures? Staff tweets? D&D 5e Unearthed Arcana material? Games such as Neverwinter Nights? Cite your sources * Use the site's citation templates so that readers can source the original works to fact-check or for further reading. See the documentation on {cite book}, {cite dragon} and {cite dungeon}. Examples: ** ** * Not every sentence requires a citation. However, if a specific claim seems unlikely or in need of evidence, mark it with a "citation required" like so: * The bottom of each page must have a References section followed by a tag. ** An easy way to add the references heading and tag is to put . * Major sources should also be named in the "Publication history" section in an article ** You can create a "Publication history" section easily using the tag and saving the page. ** When linking directly to books, such as in the Publication History section, you may benefit from templates like {book}, {DragonMagazine} and {DungeonMagazine}. This will usually automatically add the date of publication from the database. * Be wary when citing non-canon sources, such as blogs, news articles or wikis. These are sometimes poorly-researched, such as the widely believed erroneous claim that the word halfling appears in Shakespeare. Spelling and grammar conventions * Don't capitalize spell or item names. This follows the convention of D&D 3rd and 5th edition. Do make wiki links. Don't make them italic; the wiki link will be sufficient. ** Exception: Do capitalize proper nouns and the names of artifacts. For example, Sword of Kas; Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion. * Don't capitalize titles in page names. Mediawiki handles lowercase titles more easily. For example, a search for the capitalized Silver Dragon will automatically find the lowercase silver dragon, but the reverse is not true. ** Exception: Proper nouns and the names of books. For example, Monster Manual. * Standardize on American English. While many Dungeons & Dragons players live in the United Kingdom or other countries, almost all official D&D products were written in American English. Therefore it's armor, not armour. Image policy * Add the {Imagecredit} template to the description of each image uploaded. * Each article should have an image in the image row of its infobox. If you find an article with an infobox and no image, please add an image. * Use copyrighted images sparingly. Fair use allows the use of copyrighted images for the purpose of commentary and criticism, but this has its limits. In particular: ** Images shold not be uploaded at a higher resolution than necessary. Wikipedia's policy is to use images no wider than 300 px, and this is a good approximate guideline. However, Wizards of the Coast has shown to be very reasonable regarding the use of their images on wikis, so WotC images larger than this may be acceptable. ** Do not upload more images than necessary to illustrate the topic for the article. ** For living real-world people, always ask permission before uploading a photo of them. * Non-copyrighted images, copyrighted images used with the explicit permission of the copyright holder, or creative commons licensed images may be used if of sufficient quality. Categories * Place articles within the existing category structure. This is vital to allow readers to find content. * In general, place items in the deepest relevant category only. For example, Waterdeep goes in Category:Cities, not Category:Settlements, even though all cities are technically also settlements. * Most pages will have only one category. However, some articles will by necessity have multiple equally valid categories. For example, Drizzt Do'Urden is both Category:Drow and Category:Rangers, while The Sunless Citadel is both Category:Adventure modules and Category:2000 publications. * Follow any individual guidelines described on each category's page. They may make exceptions to these guidelines. * Think carefully before creating a new category. ** Categories should reflect the plural, rather than the singular. For example, "Spells", not "Spell". ** Do not create overly specific categories. ** Try to remain edition-neutral. ** Don't use title case in category names except for proper nouns. ** Try to respect the existing category tree (see Category:Browse). * Categories are not tags. Don't use the categories feature to tag an article with numerous related keywords. * Monster and race name tags are for individuals of that creature type, not all articles related to that creature. For example, Drizzt Do'Urden appears in Category:Drow, but Drow language or drow poison do not. Those articles should instead be linked naturally in the main article on drow. * Note carefully the differences between the subcategories of Category:Creatures, which are for species of monster, and Category:Named creatures, which are for individuals of a species. Dealing with other users * Be kind. Expressing anger or hatred toward other users creates a poor atmosphere, and is rarely effective at convincing others of your viewpoint. * Assume good faith. Unreasonable edits are usually the result of users making an honest mistake, being unaware of site policy, or drawing from inaccurate sources. Avoid jumping to the conclusion that users are being intentionally obtuse. Other wikis : Main article: Other wikis For topics on specific campaign settings, there is often a setting-specific wiki which you can contribute to, and which may be a better fit for a detailed article on that topic. For example: * Forgotten Realms Wiki * Eberron Wiki * The Great Library of Greyhawk * Cyclopedia Mystara (Mystara) * Chronicles of Astinus (Dragonlance) * Dark Sun Wiki Be aware that other wikis may have different site policies to this one. For example, the Forgotten Realms Wiki writes in past tense. Avoid copying directly from another wiki unless that wiki grants permission to do so. Do not cite or copy from dandwiki.com, dnd-wiki.org, or dungeons.wikia.com, as these primarily consist of homebrew fan-content and not canon. Administration Guidelines to future admins of this wiki: * The goal of this wiki is to be the Dungeons & Dragons equivalent to Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki. Document every minor character, every world, every language, every race, and every item appearing in a canon source. Bring others to the project to make this happen. * Do not allow homebrew—there are other wikis for that purpose. Do not merge with a homebrew wiki or take its domain name. Do not use a parchment design or other design or name that could be mistaken for popular homebrew wikis. It is vital that readers can trust all pages on this website to be an enyclopedic reference to Dungeons & Dragons. Category:Policy Category:Browse